Talk:Hisstan
Hisstan and Pssufalu could be considered minor characters in that they have no direct impact on the story, they don't appear, and their names would be little more than the answers to high-difficulty questions at Turtledove Trivia Night. However, consider their place in the history of the Race as leaders who set the precedent for interstellar imperialism; their role as historical figures in helping to make the Race a fully realized fictional society; the pressure Atvar felt to measure up to their example as everything went to shit around him; and the insight into the nature of the Race's inability to cope with a threat to their supremacy which a reader can gain by contemplating the above. For these reasons, plus the fact that succession boxes don't fit too well into the Minor Characters lists, I feel these two articles should be restored as standalones. Turtle Fan (talk) 03:38, May 24, 2014 (UTC) :Not having read the series, I can't say for sure but given TF's outline it makes sense. I do feel that we have been a little too extreme in putting characters into the aggregate article rather in individual articles. The original idea was to put characters who appear once or twice there but we now have characters who appeared multiple times (admittedly they didn't do much). For example we have Eddie (Southern Victory), the corpsman who appeared in most O'Doull scenes while he was in uniform. We also have Lt. Don Griffiths who was Pound's barrel commander and must have appear a half dozen times in two books before being wounded. Perhaps a review of this is in order? ML4E (talk) 16:43, May 24, 2014 (UTC) ::I debated Hisstan and Pssufalu when I bumped them. I don't have any problem with moving them back into articles. :::There's also my increasingly hard-to-maintain hope that some day HT will write an Atlantis-esque series of novellas set in the Race's history, in which case you might expect Hisstan and/or Pssufalu to appear (unless he's forgotten their names himself). I didn't want to include wish fulfillment as a plank in my argument. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:19, May 25, 2014 (UTC) ::We probably could stand to review the policy. I just wanted to whittle down those articles about characters that were one or two lines. I acknowledge that might have included characters who made a large number of appearances. TR (talk) 16:50, May 24, 2014 (UTC) :::If the concern is that we have too many very short articles, we need to be careful that we're not removing articles that deserve more content but that we never got around to finishing, and most likely never will. I have to think that's the case with Eddie and Griffiths. Turtle Fan (talk) 00:19, May 25, 2014 (UTC) ::::It's not. Eddie and Griffiths are background coloring, for lack of a better word. As ML4E said, both show up several times, but don't do anything particularly notable. A thoroughly detailed article for Eddie would be: "In DttE, pg 35, Eddie brought an injured guy to O'Doull. In Dtte, pg 193, Eddie brought an injured guy to O'Doull. In TG, pg 4, etc, etc." The geography would change, but that would be the some total of the article. TR (talk) 14:18, May 25, 2014 (UTC) :::::With "In DttE, pg xxx, Eddie scrounged a trombone for Goodson Lord." for a bit of variety. But yes, they don't do much but they do show up repeatedly in a POV's scenes. If we still want to combine them in a minor characters article, then fine but the original intent was to use it for one scene wonders. ML4E (talk) 17:53, May 25, 2014 (UTC) ::::::Well all right then. I really didn't recall these two characters, which probably should have been my first clue. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:07, May 25, 2014 (UTC) MFC This can probably be moved to MFC. Things have changed since 2014.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 17:56, May 18, 2016 (UTC) :Elaborate. The fact that we did what you want and then reversed it should make it clear we'll need some convincing. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:09, May 18, 2016 (UTC) ::I'm not familiar with what happened here until Summer 2015, but this doesn't seem to be any more significant that past heads of state ref'd in The Two Georges. It has been decided here in the past year that being a head of state (or a supreme commander of forces in this case) isn't enough on its own to exempt the character from MFC status.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 22:17, May 18, 2016 (UTC) :::The only real change that's happened is, we've had someone show up out of nowhere and insist on moving everyone this side of Jake Featherston to those MFC lists. That person has very little pull here, however. :::I for one should certainly say that the case for keeping the Conquerors is no less strong for Jonathan's arrival. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:03, May 19, 2016 (UTC) Okay, lets try to keep this impersonal and just make a case for what you want to do or why it shouldn't be done. Jonathan, please explain why you feel it should be moved. I do wish to point out to you that if you take a look at the history of this article, you will see that it was moved to Minor Characters in 2012 before it was recreated as a stand-alone in 2014. You may also want to address the previous discussion too. A little less snark please. Turtle Fan, he can be irritating but I am trying to not lose my temper with him and to hear him out. ML4E (talk) 16:59, May 19, 2016 (UTC) :Jonathan's key point, that we have several heads of state and government on Minor Fictional Characters pages, probably carries the most weight. It is perfectly consistent that the Race's conquering heroes, both of whom get a line at most over 7 volumes, should go the way of Joyce Peterman. TR (talk) 18:55, May 19, 2016 (UTC)